Tin Men (The Clay Lion Series Book 2)

by Amalie Jahn

  “I met him at the Box Car Diner. You know the one in Bakersville, just off route 52? I ordered a slice of key lime pie, but all he ordered was a cup of coffee.” She paused. “I never did eat my pie.”

  My mother sat sipping her wine for several minutes as if she forgot she was involved in a conversation with the rest of us. It was as if she was no longer in the room, but had instead been transported back to the night she was describing. For some reason, she was hesitant to go on.

  “Mom?” I said. “What did he tell you?”

  She blinked twice as if to refocus her attention on the present and continued.

  “He told me a woman visited him that afternoon who said she’d gotten pregnant and given birth to a baby boy. She claimed that the child was his. He assured me it was impossible, and that he’d never met the woman before in his life. Phil was beside himself with worry that she would ruin his career with her lies, just as he was finally beginning to make a name for himself in the political world. The worst part, he said, was that she was strung out on God knows what kind of drugs. It was obvious to him she had no business raising a child.”

  She took another sip of wine and stared straight ahead, as if she could no longer bring herself to look in my direction. Finally, she began again.

  “Phil was always a kind man. A generous man. A giving man. The decision he made about that woman erased any doubts I had about whether I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.”

  As she turned to look at me, pain chiseled the lines of her face. I knew what she was about to confess.

  “Charlie, my sweet Charlie. I didn’t give birth to you, but you should know that you have always been my son. Phil couldn’t stand the thought of such a deplorable woman raising you. After several medical professionals examined her, they deemed her unfit to parent. If I remember correctly, she was admitted to some sort of rehabilitation clinic. The authorities were unable to locate your father, and since there was no other family willing to take you in, you became a ward of the state. We began the adoption process immediately.” She sighed, deflating like a week-old balloon. “I don’t know why he never wanted to tell you, but there it is. That’s the truth. And I love you. I’ve loved you since the first time I held your little hand in mine.”

  I closed my eyes to keep from passing out or throwing up. Brooke grabbed my leg, a supportive gesture. As the room continued to spin, I knew it would take more than her kindness to help me sort through my emotions.

  I knew deep down I was adopted for as long as I could remember. But surprisingly, having the proof I so desperately wanted felt more like a prison sentence than a stay of execution. Instead of feeling complete, like a puzzle whose final piece had at last been put in place, a void opened up inside of me. Like a sink hole, which had been there all along under the façade of solid ground, there was now nothing but a gaping pit. And that pit was filled with anger and rejection and sadness.

  I steadied myself and stood up from the sofa.

  Mom rushed to console me. “I’m so sorry we didn’t tell you before, while he was still alive. I’m so sorry you’ll never have the opportunity to thank Phil for what he did for you.”

  Her words serrated the jagged edges of my gaping wound.

  “Thank him?” I jeered. “Thank him for what? For lying to me for 20 years? For never thinking my need for the truth was more important than his need for control? It was always about his stupid career! Always! Not telling me meant he would never have to explain where I came from to anyone else which made things clean and simple, just the way he liked it. Only now, it’s not clean and simple! Now it’s a mess. How convenient he’s not here to deal with it!”

  “That’s not fair, Charlie!” she cried out behind me as I stormed into the foyer and headed upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.

  I slammed my bedroom door behind me and relished the sound of it echoing through the house.

  I was angry at my father for lying to me. Angry that he took me from my birth mother all those years ago. I was angry that he put the demands of his career above my needs, and angry at Mom for going along with it. I was disappointed my sister wasn’t really my sister, and that the family I believed in a week ago was nothing more than a charade. And I was angry my father wasn’t even around so I could tell him just how angry I was.

  I threw myself across my bed and beat my fists into the mattress, but it wasn’t enough to release the wound up rage inside me. I needed to throw something. Anything. I picked up a large swimming trophy from my bookshelf, one of the many my father hadn’t seen me earn. I positioned myself to launch it at the wall. But just before my hand released, a vision of my mom beaming at me from across the pool deck flashed before my eyes. She was as proud of me that day as any parent would have been of their own flesh and blood, cheering me on from the sidelines meet after meet.

  I returned the trophy to my desk and instead began to pace, from my bed to the window and back again.

  As I continued to pace the length of my room, waiting for Brooke or Melody or Mom to make an appearance, my fury began to subside. I realized I was as angry with myself as I was with anyone else.

  I knew the woman in the photo was my mother the moment Brooke showed her to me. Yet for some reason I couldn’t explain, I needed to hear the truth spoken aloud. And so because of my selfishness, I caused my mom additional, unnecessary pain on top of the devastation caused by my father’s tragic death. Perhaps I was more Phil Johnson’s son than I cared to admit.

  As I collapsed onto my bed for a second time, there was a quiet knock at the door. When I didn’t respond, Brooke let herself in.

  She stood silently above me with her hands on her hips and a disapproving look on her face.

  “Seriously, Charlie?” she scolded.

  I sat up and scooted over to give her room to sit beside me, but she remained standing.

  “I know. I’m acting like a child. But since I just found out I have two mothers, I certainly don’t need a third.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not trying to be your mother, Charlie. Especially since you already have an amazing one downstairs, in tears, struggling with how to convince you that becoming your mom was the best thing that ever happened to her. I just thought you should know.” She glared at me before turning back toward the door.

  A lump formed in my throat. “Is that what she said?”

  “Yes. That’s what she said.”

  I hesitated, considering her declaration.

  “She thinks I should be grateful for what he did. For taking me away from my mother and giving me this life instead.”

  “Maybe you should be grateful.”

  The truth stung, especially hearing it from Brooke, whose insights were usually spot on. “I probably should. She’s right. But it was just like him to do something like that. He always assumed he was right about everything. That he knew what was best for everyone.” I was seething. “I hated that about him.”

  Brooke stepped back into the room, and as she sidled up beside me on the bed, her demeanor completely changed. She brushed my tousled hair aside and kissed me tenderly on the forehead. “Okay. You hated that about him. What else?”

  “What else, what?”

  “What else did you hate?”

  I chuckled. “You want the whole list?”

  “Yeah. The whole list. Give it to me.”

  I thought for a moment. “I hated that he loved the power of his job more than he loved me.”

  “Great. What else?”

  I stood up. “I hated that he paraded us around like show ponies and snowed everyone into believing he was a great dad. And I hated the way he always expected me to want to be just like him and got angry when I didn’t want to be anything like him. And most of all, I hated how he gave us the best of everything… but never the best of himself.”

  My vision blurred and I bit my lip in an attempt to stifle my emotions. Brooke joined me in the center of the room and folded herself into the space between my arms. />
  “It’s okay to cry,” she whispered.

  Tears were already on their way, with or without her permission. The tears she’d been waiting to see since the news of my father’s death finally arrived.

  “He was a horrible father, but he was the only one I had, and now he’s gone and it doesn’t even matter because he wasn’t even my father after all.” I scrunched my face to keep her from seeing my pain.

  “And the worst part is, you can’t even tell him how mad you are about any of it,” she finished for me.

  I rested my chin on her head and pulled her into my chest. It was just like her to know how to express exactly what I was feeling before I knew I was feeling it. It was one of the many things I loved about her.

  From the moment I met her, Brooke seemed to have known me, sometimes better than I knew myself. It was as if she’d always been a part of my life. Ever since the beautiful September afternoon when she pass rushed her way into my heart, she blended herself seamlessly into my life. In the months and years that followed, there were many times I felt as if I was still getting to know her, while she seemed to understand all there was to know about me. As unnerving as it could have been, I found there was great comfort in her faithful understanding, especially given the lack of emotional support I received from my father.

  I took several deep breaths, allowing the familiar scent of her shampoo to soothe me. I didn't want to ever let her go.

  “What do I do now?” I asked.

  She hesitated, releasing herself from my embrace. “Is that a rhetorical question, or are you looking for an answer?”

  “Both,” I replied.

  She picked up a football from beneath my desk and threw it at my head. I caught it.

  “That’s what you do,” she said.

  “I catch a football?”

  “No. You react. You roll with the punches. You let this all play out, and when something gets chucked at your head, you deal with it.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, Miss ‘One with the Universe.’ You always have your stuff together. Your brother died and you sailed right through.” She caught the football I threw at her chest.

  “I didn’t, Charlie. I was a mess. It took me a long time to make peace with what happened. You have no idea how I fought. I beat my head against the wall. I swam against the tide. Until I decided to let it be.”

  “I don’t know how to ‘let it be,’” I confessed. “Or if I want to.”

  She threw the football at my head again.

  “So if you’re not ready to let it be, what do you want to do?”

  I thought about her question. There were lots of things I wanted to do and a few that just couldn’t wait, starting with mending my family’s hurt feelings.

  “I need to talk to Mom and Melody. I need to tell them we’re going to be okay.”

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  Yes. We had to be. They were my family, and I wasn’t going to risk losing them.

  “My mom will always be my mom and my sister will always be my sister. I love them. That hasn’t changed, has it?”

  “No, Charlie. How could it?”

  “What if I did something that might hurt them?”

  “Why would you do that?” she asked scornfully.

  “It wouldn’t be on purpose, but there’s something else I want to do, Brooke. And it might make them sad.” I hesitated to go on, knowing once the words were spoken aloud, I’d be unable to take them back. “I want to find my mother. My birth mother. Because if I can find her, then maybe I can stop feeling so lost. Mom said I was two when I was taken away. I must have missed her. I must have loved her. So perhaps if she can tell me the story of who I was when I was with her, then maybe it will help me make sense of who I am, since being adopted is part of my identity now. I just have to figure out if I’m going to allow it to shape the man I’m supposed to become.”

  C HAPTER FOUR

  By the time I found the courage to approach Mom about finding my birth mother, both she and Melody had already gone to bed. I decided not to wake her, and instead curled up with Brooke on the living room sofa in front of the TV. I didn’t remember falling asleep and was disappointed to find myself alone, still dressed in the suit pants I wore to the cemetery the day before, as the sun rose the next morning. At some point during the night, Brooke crept silently from my arms and went home, leaving me with nothing but the festering wound of my newly discovered family secrets.

  I readied myself for the day, tormented by an onslaught of conflicting emotions. In addition to the pain of being lied to and the anger it produced, there was also a hollowness in my gut and an aching in my heart I wasn’t expecting. I tried focusing on the anger because it was easier than acknowledging the rest, but the quiet grief of not knowing my biological family kept floating to the surface. It was as if I’d been stripped of a piece of my identity and was no longer exactly who I was before. As I tied my sneakers, I considered how finding my mother might help me regain my bearings and get me back on solid ground.

  Thankfully, Mom and Melody were still asleep as I snuck out of the house. The confidence I mustered the night before disappeared with the dawn, and I lacked the courage to face them. I knew I needed more time to pull myself together if I was going to tell them about my plans. I was fearful about how they might react and knew the last thing I wanted was to upset them. I had no idea whether they would support me in the search for my mother, or whether my intentions would drive an unintended wedge between us. And frankly, I was too scared to find out.

  I drove aimlessly for almost an hour, ending up at the one place which always felt like home. As I pulled my car into Brooke’s driveway, I realized it was not yet 7 o’clock. I rolled the windows down and closed my eyes, listening to the birds waking up in the forest. Several minutes passed, and I had just decided to head back home when I noticed Brooke’s mother walking across the lawn in my direction.

  I wasn’t shocked to see her coming out to check on me. I still remembered the first time Brooke invited me to meet her parents. It was fall break, only five or six weeks after we first met. Having spent almost every waking moment together at school, the thought of being apart during break was unbearable to both of us. Brooke insisted we eat dinner together at her family’s house that very first night. She promised her family would love me. She just felt it in her bones. And not surprisingly, she was right.

  I became a regular fixture at the Wallace house throughout the years. I assumed her parents enjoyed having me around because I helped fill some of the void left by Branson’s death, although Brooke assured me her family would have been just as welcoming if Branson had still been alive. In any case, Mrs. Wallace was something of a mother figure to me as well, so it wasn’t strange to see her padding out to me in her robe and slippers, a coffee mug in her hand.

  “Rough night?” she asked sympathetically as she approached the driver’s side door.

  “You could say that,” I replied.

  “Brooke told me a little bit when she got home last night.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I still wait up for her, but I do. After her car accident in high school, I just need to know she’s safe, I guess.”

  “That’s understandable,” I fumbled, embarrassed by how much Brooke may have told her about my behavior the night before.

  There was nothing to suggest she was bothered by my early arrival as she invited me to come inside. “I kind of had a feeling I’d be seeing you this morning. Don’t know what you’re doing sitting out here in the car. Come on inside. I made a fresh pot,” she said, lifting her mug.

  “Is Brooke awake?” I asked as I climbed out of the car.

  “No. You can wake her if you want though. She won’t mind.”

  I followed her into the kitchen with no intention of waking Brooke. However, as nice as her mom was, I also didn’t plan on making small talk with her for the next hour. I was suddenly angry at myself for not thinking through my morning more carefully, but before I had a
chance to think of a reason to leave, she pulled out a kitchen chair and placed a mug of coffee on the table.

  “Milk and sugar?” she asked.

  “Yes, please,” I sighed, resigning myself to the chair.

  There was a moment of silence as we sipped from our cups. She looked at me from across the table with a sympathetic smile as she began to speak.

  “You know, Charlie, being a mom is a funny thing. You think you know how it’s going to be before you have children. You think you know what love is. What it means to really, truly love someone. Like the love you have for Brooke. It’s pure. Honest. Strong. But I promise you, it won’t compare with the love you will feel for a child.”

  I didn’t speak. I didn’t know if she wanted me to acknowledge what she was saying was true or if she was merely talking to make herself feel better about my situation. She continued without waiting for me to respond.

  “When you have a child, you give yourself to them. You allow that child to carry a piece of you around everywhere they go. It’s not a conscious decision, it just happens. It’s the way mothers are wired. When you are a mother, tasked with the greatest responsibility in the world, that of raising a tiny human into adulthood, you give your heart to that child, whether you want to or not. And the things you do for them, the everyday things, like teaching them to tie their shoes or signing up for the PTA bake sale or driving 45 minutes out of your way to deliver a forgotten homework assignment… those are the things you do out of love. Because your heart is out there in the world and it needs you.

  “Charlie, your mom isn’t your mom because she had to be. She’s your mom because she wanted to be. She chose to be your mom every day for the past 20 years. She chose to give you a piece of her heart and let you walk around with it. She didn’t have to, but she did. In my book, that’s an even greater love than the love I have for Brooke and Branson because Charlie, she chose to love you. I didn’t have that choice. She did. And she chose you.”